Citizens’ group insists creek contamination high

NJNG agrees to another round of sampling

BY CHRISTINE VARNO Staff Writer

BY CHRISTINE VARNO
Staff Writer

LONG BRANCH — A local environmental group is questioning the procedures the New Jersey Natural Gas (NJNG) company is using to control contaminants found in Troutman’s Creek.

“They [NJNG] are more concerned with saving money than they are with saving lives and the environment,” Avery W. Grant, executive director of the Concerned Citizens Coalition (CCC), said at the group’s Dec. 9 meeting. “We are sure contamination does not end where they say it does.”

The CCC is a group formed to oversee the remediation of the former site of the NJNG manufactured gas plant (MGP) on Long Branch Avenue. The group claims the facility has contaminated areas in the city, including Troutman’s Creek.

NJNG has agreed to another round of testing of Troutman’s Creek as a follow-up to testing that was conducted in March to identify possible impacts from the former MGP beyond the former plant property, Roseanne Koberle, spokeswoman for NJNG, said in a prepared statement on Dec. 13.

“The March 2004 testing measured levels of substances associated with coal tar,” she said. “The results of the March 2004 testing were provided to environmental health experts to review. These experts have advised NJNG that, based on the concentrations measured, contact with creek water and surface sediments would not likely result in adverse health effects.”

The CCC disagreed with those results and retained the Edison Wetlands Association (EWA) — an environmental group — to further investigate the contamination levels in the creek.

EWA collected their own data, and the results showed high concentration levels of contamination, according to Robert Spiegel, a representative of EWA.

“Edison Wetlands took soil/sediment samples showing contamination exceeded NJ Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) standards and may be harmful to humans and fish,” Grant said in a CCC press release.

NJNG reported that the data collected and tested by EWA was not valid, according to Spiegel.

“NJDEP found that the testing “lacked the details required to interpret and utilize the data to the fullest potential,” according to Koberle.

Spiegel said the one reason his group’s results were so drastically different than those of NJNG may be due to the method used by NJNG to test the data samples.

NJNG took two sets of data and sent the information to two different labs, ILA in New Jersey and TDI in Texas, according to Spiegel.

“The data from ILA lab was relatively low in concentration, and the TDI results were closer to EWA’s measures, according to Spiegel who said NJNG used the ILA “instead of being responsible and fair.”

There are many compounds in coal tar that are found in everyday materials in the environment, such as vehicle exhaust and asphalt, according to Koberle, who said the analysis of the data from the creek was sent to two laboratories to determine potential sources of the substances found.

“We wanted a lab that could do a broader range and find which substances are from the environment and which substances are from MGP,” she said.

TDI conducted a broader range of testing and reported higher levels of contamination, according to Koberle, who said those results could not be used because the lab was not certified under the NJDEP at the time.

ILA was certified and chosen in order to follow NJDEP regulations, Koberle said.

“Now [TDI] is certified and available for use in the future,” she said.

Spiegel has requested that NJNG share samples with EWA so the two groups could obtain results from the same collection of samples.

“We were hoping to do split samples with NJNG,” Spiegel said. “They said they would not share samples. That raises suspicions.” Koberle said NJNG is discussing the possibility of sharing samples with NJDEP as this time.

“We [NJNG] are participating in an ongoing dialogue with NJDEP guided by our mutual goal of protecting and preserving the health and environment of the community,” Koberle said.

EWA plans to perform further tests on the creek sometime in January and carry out another sampling with the help of an engineer, according to Spiegel.

“We are going to dot our i’s and cross our t’s, and that will be the end of this,” he said. “Hope next year Troutman’s Creek can work at being remediated.